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The DEA Museum Exhibit



Suzanne Wills, Drug Policy Chair

September, 2003

On September 8, 2003 the Drug Enforcement Administration will open an exhibit from the DEA Museum, Target America: Traffickers, Terrorists and You, at The Science Place. The advance publicity says “… the exhibit examines the connection between drug sales and the funding of terrorism….with artifacts from the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center.” Both the DEA and The Science Place have been publicly criticized since this exhibit was announced; the DEA, for using the horror and tragedy of 9/11 to promote its agenda and The Science Place, for showcasing an agency that is often in opposition to science.

Target America: Traffickers, Terrorists and You promises to explore the “symbiotic relationships that exist between terrorist groups and drug trafficking cartels.” Yet the exorbitant profits that make the drug trade attractive to criminals of all sorts come from the drugs’ illegal status which the DEA supports. The difference between a regulated market and an illegal market for the same drug can be seen by looking at the Swiss diamorphine (heroin) assisted treatment clinics. During 2000 the Swiss clinics dispensed 55 pounds of pure heroin to addicts in the program. It cost $128,000. On the illegal market that heroin would have brought traffickers, and possibly terrorists, $3.7 million.

Nowhere is the disconnect between the DEA and science more evident than in the DEA’s classification of cannabis as a Schedule 1 drug (unsafe, subject to abuse and of no medical value). In 1998 the Office of National Drug Control Policy paid nearly $1,000,000 for a study of cannabis by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), a division of the National Academy of Sciences. The IOM report said in part “For patients…who suffer…from severe pain, nausea, and appetite loss cannabinoid drugs might offer…relief not found in any other single medication.” It also listed many medical conditions that may be helped by cannabis including spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis or spinal cord injury, migraine headaches and movement disorders. Karen Tandy from Hurst, Texas was confirmed as the new head of the DEA in July. In confirmation hearings she said she would continue to conduct raids on state-approved medical marijuana patients and providers and that she was “not personally familiar” with the IOM report.

The Food and Drug Administration is the most science-based of the federal agencies that regulate drugs. The FDA has approved two medicinal cannabis trials that cannot be conducted because the researchers have no access to government approved cannabis. Private supplies of all other drugs are available to researchers. Lyle Craker, Director of the Medicinal Plants Program, Dept. of Plant and Soil Sciences has been attempting to establish a private source of cannabis for FDA approved research at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Prof. Craker needs the permission of the DEA. It has steadfastly refused for two years.

The DEA Museum exhibit at The Science Place will be interesting. It will not be scientific.

Sources: www.scienceplace.org

St. Petersburg Times, July 31, 2001

Are Texans Being Denied Access to a Vital Medicine? By Jerry Epstein

Tandy Won't be Dandy for Medical Marijuana by Bill Berkowitz

Dr. Rick Doblin

An update on the Tulia story: On July 30, all 18 members of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles recommended a pardon for each of the 35 people convicted in the case. Gov. Perry will now decide whether or not to grant them.

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